Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Things That Will Make Us Instantly Want To Read A Book

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish that other bloggers are welcome to join in, to create Top Ten lists on varying topics. This week it’s Top Ten Things That Will Make Us Instantly Want To Read A Book

Paein

1 Good Writing

Seems a no brainer, but there are some writers that I auto buy books from because I like their writing style. The most recent was Bright Smoke, Cold Fire by Rosamund Hodge. If I’d known the premise before I pre-ordered it, I’d forgotten it by the time it turned up but I liked her others and I realised it was vastly likely I’d like this one too. I hope to read it soon!

2 Background Romance [in an Adventure]

I like romance, but I rarely like it to be ALL the book is about. I want the characters to find a partner who can help them through life and be helped through life by them. More “Hey there you are! Let’s go on an adventure!” and less “There you are! My life is complete.” I like something interesting to be going on up front for the characters to focus on. It’s also a good way for the characters to learn about who the other person is too, through experience. If it involves swords and other worlds, all the better!

3 Something New

I like new ideas, it’s a major reason why I read YA – more variety. Unfortunately the YA genre gets flooded with ‘clones’ following popular formulas even though they were popular formulas BECAUSE they were different and so they have short shelf lives. If you wade through them though you often get a fantastic gem or 12. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black is an example of this – it came out after the vampire craze, but it was something new. It’s sad that so many people missed out on it because they were vampired out.

4 Team Work

Kind of covered this in “background romance” possibly, but why spend a whole book getting two characters together when you’re just going to pull them apart for book two? Ok so they’re newish to the idea of coupledom, but please can we have some books where once they’re together they stay together and help each other out?! C’mon, I’d pick that kind of book up right away!
(Do you know of any books like this?! Please tell me about them! Thank you)

5 Wit/Sarcasm

I love one liners. I love hilarious comebacks. I love weird sentences that are completely ridiculous that start off purely science based and deviate into lost alliteration…
(“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint – it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.”).
I mean, I love Doctor Who so are you surprised? If there are witty and sarcastic characters in a book, all the better. Double points if there are multiple characters that banter together. It’s just fantastic reading. If I see a particularly appealing quote, I will follow it back to it’s origin.

…

Ms4Tune

6 A Creepy But Beautiful Cover

I know we’re not supposed to judge a book by it’s cover but sometimes I just can’t help myself. There’s something compelling about a cover that is so beautiful and yet gives you that creepy chill. It makes me want to find out whether the story is written in a similar way. Sadly not every gorgeous cover has a gorgeous story within but that’s the risk we all take when we fall for a beautiful cover.

7 The Promise of Magic and Adventure

Probably one of my favourite genres – fantasy adventures. If a book promises a quest and anything at all magical I am likely to pick it up. I just love getting lost in a good fantasy and feeling like I’ve found some great new friends.

8 An Anti-Hero

This is a new one for me. I’ve only just started to read books about anti-heroes but there is definitely something readable about these kind of characters. They don’t always do the right thing, they may be totally selfish and sometimes they may just be the villain but it doesn’t mean we love them any less.

9 A Retelling

I like the familiarity of a retelling. You know where the story is going to go and what to expect but then a good re-telling adds something else to the mix to make it amazing.

10 Favourite Authors

Simple I know but it needs to be on this list. If there is a new book by one of my favourite authors I don’t even bother to read the blurb, I just order it because I know they won’t disappoint me. Thank you for being awesome… Jojo Moyes, V E Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, Lucy Dillon, Laini Taylor… to name but a few!

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5 comments on “Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Things That Will Make Us Instantly Want To Read A Book”

I need wit and scarcasm in books. They make me so happy, haha. It is good to hear that The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is worth a read. I’ve read her The Darkest Part of the Forest and enjoyed that a lot.

Hello!
I agree! I can forgive a bad book if it’s full of sass, because then it’s not really a bad book!
I liked The Darkest Part of The Forest too. The story telling is very similar to The Coldest Girl in Coldtown ans while I sometimes flick through that too, it’s Coldtown I re-read the most.